


Sleeping Dragons Ep 05 - The Old Terror

by Soledad



Series: Sleeping Dragons [6]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Torchwood
Genre: Archie is smarter than people would think, Dubious UNIT leaders, Even Ianto can be surprised, Gen, Jack is full of surprises and he can cook too, More characters TBA as we progress, Torchwood House is an odd place
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-07-28 05:48:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7627510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soledad/pseuds/Soledad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The team of TW newbies goes to Scotland to help organising the Archives of TW House. However, there are worse things lurking in the Scottish highlands than just the Loch Ness monster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Fearful Summons

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fifth instalment of the “Sleeping Dragons” series, a Torchwood Season Two AU. Certain canon events have been moved up or down the Whoniverse timeline to make the series’ events possible. All changes have been made deliberately.
> 
> Beta read by the lovely janiemc whom I owe my gratitude.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **CHAPTER 01 – THE FEARFUL SUMMONS**

Colonel Alan Mace, commanding officer of the secret UNIT base on the outskirts of Cardiff, stared at his tabletop calendar morosely. The one-year anniversary on his current post was coming up but he certainly didn’t feel like celebrating.

What was there to celebrate anyway? He’d basically been _exiled_ to this godforsaken place in the middle of nowhere – after having commanded the entire British Division of UNIT through the Sontaran crisis… and for what? For violating the ruddy fraternisation rules?

It was ridiculous. Marion – Captain Price, the best and brightest who had ever served with the Royal Engineers – was first and foremost a comrade whom he greatly respected for her knowledge and professionalism. So, what if she had lost control after having survived (against all hope) the Sontaran invasion and impulsively kissed him in front of his entire staff? They hadn’t even met outside of duty shifts back then.

At first Colonel Mace had blamed the antiquated rules of the armed forces for his exile. But lately he was getting suspicious that there might have been more behind it. Captain Magambo was certainly the most disciplined, by-the-book officer UNIT had ever had the luck to call its own, not likely to make a similar mistake… and yet she, too, had been removed from the London Headquarters and reassigned to another rotten, insignificant outpost.

Facts like that made one think about what might be going on upstairs.

It seemed as if all of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart’s people – everyone who had been hand picked by the Brig and thus had contact with the Doctor – had been removed from their positions, in order to make room for Colonel Oduya’s boot-lickers, and yet there had to be more to these changes than just an over-zealous staff officer on a power trip. Somebody had to have sponsored Oduya, helping him to his current position; a position he clearly wasn’t worthy of holding. 

Oduya was xenophobic, paranoid and obsessed with control, quite the opposite of the Brig… or Mace himself, for that matter. Sure, he _liked_ order – which ranking officer did not? – but he wasn’t a control freak. Or so he hoped.

Whoever Oduya’s sponsor might be, they clearly wanted a puppet. One stupid enough to believe _he_ was in charge. One who would do everything to keep the power he believed – falsely to be his. And _that_ made Colonel Mace worry seriously about the future of UNIT:

_I’m not so sure about UNIT in these days_ , the bitter comment of Captain Jack Harkness echoed in his mind. And while he was not a great fan of the former Torchwood Three leader, to put it mildly, deep in his heart Colonel Mace had to agree with that statement. _He_ wasn’t so sure about UNIT in these days, either. Not since Oduya had taken over.

Unlike other ranking officers, Colonel Mace knew about The Year That Never Was – not because he’d have been on the _Valiant_ but because Director Jones, the new Torchwood leader, found it necessary for him to be informed and had authorised Dr. Martha Jones, the medical officer of his base and his liaison to Torchwood Three, to tell him everything. Colonel Mace was of two minds whether he should be grateful for such previously undemonstrated trust from Torchwood’s side or not.

On the one hand such knowledge was always power and enabled him to be careful around certain fellow officers. Mostly those who _had_ been on the _Valiant_ and _had_ incriminated themselves in the service of Prime Minister Harold Saxon – who, apparently, had been a renegade Time Lord… and a rather mad one at that. These officers could still remember everything, having been in the eye of the storm when Time had been reset and a whole year eradicated from history. They were also the ones thinking they were the only ones in the known, and Alan Mace felt some dark satisfaction knowing how wrong they were.

Besides, it was infinitely easier to work with Torchwood since Director Jones had taken over.

On the other hand, ignorance _was_ bliss. It would have been easier to believe that he’d been exiled for the violation of the non-fraternisation rules indeed than to accept that the organisation that had been his backbone since coming of age, that had represented all the values he had always believed in, would suddenly take a turn to the worse and become corrupted.

Unfortunately, that was exactly what it looked like. Without the strong leadership of The Brig to keep it on the right path, UNIT had become the playground of the Oduyas and their powerful supporters in the shadowy chambers of Whitehall.

And he couldn’t do anything to stop them. Not here, isolated from everything and everyone of true importance. Not even with the surprisingly steady cooperation of Torchwood.

Oh, he knew that Director Jones was worried, too. The few meetings of the young Torchwood Director with Oduya, though amiable on the surface – generally due to Jones’s unshakable calm and impeccable good manners – hadn’t gone well, And while he had his own connections to Whitehall, most of the senior civil servants working at the Home Office seemed… reserved at best when it came to Torchwood. While some of them had become awfully friendly with Oduya, which was concerning, to say the least.

The colonel’s somewhat circular thought process was interrupted by the muted ringing of his phone. Not the landline on his desk, not even his regular mobile phone. The incredibly advanced little tool vibrating in his breast pocket was a Torchwood-issue phone, enhanced with alien technology; one that not even the Secret Service could have hacked.

Well… their current “guest”, Agent Johnson from MI6, might have managed to do so if she had _really_ tried. Which was why no one but the colonel himself and some of his most trusted men knew about the very existence of that phone in the first place. The number was practically non-existent; any call could only come from Torchwood directly – or for Commodore Sullivan, the only potential ally still in London.

Or, in this case, from Captain Marion Price, the only other granted access to it. It was meant for emergency access only, so Colonel Mace was understandably shocked to see her ID on the display. She’d _never_ called him on that phone before!

“Marion,” he said, picking up the phone. “What’s wrong?”

Because something _had_ to be wrong. Such an unexpected call could only mean trouble.

“I must be short,” she replied. “I’ve been reassigned to a secret research facility, somewhere in Scotland. Forgill Castle or something like that. Alan, I don’t even know where it _is_! Never knew we had any facilities there… it must been something really new. Rumour says it’s a genetics lab of some sort…”

“Why would they need _you_ then?” Mace asked in surprise. “You’re an engineer, not a biologist, for God’s sake!”

“Yes, but I also have a degree in cybernetics, and apparently that’s what they need,” she replied. “I don’t like this, Alan. Why would a genetics lab need a cybernetic engineer? We’re not so far yet that we could create organic technology on our level of scientific development. What if they found a Cyberman and are trying to reprogram it or whatnot? One of those things on the loose would be enough to raise an entire Cyber-army, and we both know that Earth doesn’t have the means to fight _that_!”

“When do you have to leave?” Mace asked. “Perhaps if we alert The Brig he can interfere with your orders long enough to…”

“There’s no _time_ ,” she interrupted, sounding positively hysterical. “I’m leaving _now_! In fact, I should be on my way already. The car is waiting right in front of the house, so I must hang up before they’d become suspicious. Don’t worry, though. I’ve manipulated this phone to self-destruct ten seconds after I end this call. They won’t be able to track it back to you.”

“Who are _they_?” Mace asked. He was getting a very bad feeling about this.

“I don’t _know_ , all right?” she was clearly fighting her rising panic. “The orders came from upstairs, from the highest levels, but I haven’t got a clue who was the one who actually gave them. I just wanted to say you good-bye, in case I’m gonna vanish without a trace. Take care, Alan. I still love you.”

And with that she hung up, not giving him the chance to answer.

Colonel Mace stared at his mute phone in utter frustration. What was he supposed to do? How could he help Marion? How could he even _find_ her to begin with?

His only clue was the name of the place: Forgill Castle. A name that, quite frankly, he’d never heard before. But again, he’d never been big at that sightseeing thing, either.

Still, it was a starting point – probably the only one he’d get. Now he only had to find the right person to dig out more. Somebody who could work well with the internet, was good enough not to get caught and reliable enough to entrust them with such a delicate task.

After a moment of quiet contemplation the colonel pushed the intercom button on his desk.

“Corporal, find me Private Jenkins,” he ordered.

“At once, sir,” Corporal Carol Bell, nicknamed the Iron Hag among the young soldiers, replied crisply.

She’d been pulled out of retirement after the Sontaran invasion when too many UNIT soldiers had found an untimely death. She was efficient, not easily intimidated – Mace was still trying to find a way to do so – and seemed to enjoy her reactivation enormously. The Colonel could be sure that Jenkins would appear in his office in less than five minutes, even if Corporal Bell had to drag him out of the shower. Or from under his car.

He checked his wristwatch and counted.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
It was indeed only three minutes forty-eight seconds after giving his order that there was a knock on his door. At his invitation a tall, slim, very handsome soldier came in and saluted in a rather sloppy way.

“Private Jenkins reporting for duty as ordered, sir,” he said.

Colonel Mace suppressed a sigh. Jenkins was a hopeless case when it came to proper discipline. Hadn’t he had a great number of relatives in _very_ high places – even though most of them refused to talk to him in these days – he’d have been dishonourably discharged long ago. Which would have been a shame, really, because he was actually a very good soldier – or rather had been until the Sontaran invasion.

As it was now, Mace had to put up with his antics for an unpredictable length of time. On other days, the colonel deeply despised that fact. Right now, however, both Jenkins’s computer skills and his contacts could come in handy.

“I need you for a very… specific task, Jenkins,” the colonel said. “You must do some… err… sensitive research for me, but no-one must get wind about it. It’s of utmost importance that only you and me know.”

The usual blasé expression of Jenkins’s beautiful face gave room to cautious interest. He’d been bored out of his head here, too, unfit for even light duty because of the nerve damage he’d suffered from that sodding Sontaran weapon and was more than happy to be assigned to a task that he actually _could_ perform.”

“Just _how_ sensitive are we talking about, sir?” he asked. “Would my personal laptop do or should I ask Torchwood permission for the use of their Mainframe?”

Mace knew that Jenkins’s laptop was anything but a standard model. It was enhanced by alien technology, thanks to his friendship with Torchwood Three’s Number Two geek, that Trevor Howard character. The colonel also knew that the central processing unit of the Torchwood Three Hub, called Mainframe, was a living, constantly expanding piece of incredibly advanced alien tech of unknown origins. He was not sure he wanted it to know about his inquiries.

“Let’s stick to your laptop first,” he said to Jenkins. “Should it not be enough, we can always involve Torchwood later. Right now, it’s still just private research.”

“Understood sir,” Jenkins was already making notices in his PDA. “What should I research for you?”

“A place in Scotland called Forgill Castle,” Mace replied. “Ever heard of it?”

To his surprise Jenkins actually nodded, although a little uncertainly. “Yes, sir, I think I have, but I can’t remember the context right now. I think it was in one of Uncle Harry’s outrageous stories he used to tell me when I was just a kid.”

_Uncle Harry_ , that was Jenkins’s godfather – no lesser person than Commodore Sullivan himself. Given that Sullivan had once been a companion of the infamous Doctor, for however short a time, and later became the Deputy Director of MI5, only to go on some very hush-hush missions for the NATO from time to time, that could mean a lot concerning Forgill Castle.

Covered-up alien presence being only one of them.

“I can ask him if you want me to, sir,” Jenkins added.

“Later perhaps,” the colonel said. “Let’s do some research first. If you don’t find anything conclusive I might ask you to pay your godfather a visit. Assuming we can make _that_ appear something harmless, that is.”

“We can,” Jenkins replied. “Uncle Harry celebrates the anniversary of his entering the Royal Navy next week. I’m invited, as usual, though I rarely go. It’s always a fancy party, one can meet with the most… interesting people.”

“Then why don’t you go every time?” Mace frowned.

“Those people often include family,” Jenkins explained with a shrug. “And such encounters can lead to… awkward situations. Not for me – I don’t really care – but my so-called family always dances on eggshells around me. They can’t ignore me, but they don’t want to admit that we are related, so… it’s easier for everyone if I stay away.“

This was the most he’d ever told _anyone_ about his family and his difficult relationship with them. Colonel Mace felt properly honoured.

“You’d be willing to go this time, though?” he asked carefully.

“Oh, yes,” Jenkins replied, with a gleam of unholy glee in his eyes. “I’d need a pretty lady to come with me, though. Female company is expected on Uncle Harry’s parties.”

“You could take Doctor Jones with you,” Mace suggested. “She is certainly pretty enough and has the manners.”

Jenkins shook his head. “No, sir, that wouldn’t be wise. She’s too well-known by… by _certain_ people. Somebody from Torchwood will have to do. Perhaps I’ll ask Rhys Williams to allow his wife to accompany me. She would fit rather nicely.”

The colonel pulled a face. “I’m not sure I want to involve Torchwood in this just yet.”

Jenkins shrugged. “I understand that, sir, but considering that they’re the only ones we still can trust, at least to a certain extent, we can’t really afford to be choosy.”

That was, of course, depressingly true, and so Colonel Mace agreed to give Jenkins free hand in the matter.

“Just see what you can find out about the place online first,” he said. “When we have some results at least we can decide how to proceed.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
One could say many unflattering things about Ross Jenkins (most of them very true), but one thing was sure: he could handle the internet like a professional hacker. Being addicted to online war games like Alien Invasion had to be good for something, after all.

The more surprising (not to mention disappointing) was it, then, that after several hours of intensive research he came up with… well, basically nothing.

Oh, there was a lot of conventional stuff about Forgill Castle online. Most of it meant for tourists, amateur historians or fanatic Celtic patriots with an overblown sense for their home country’s supposed importance.

“Well, sir, the actual facts are rather spare,” Jenkins admitted reluctantly, handing his commanding officer a printout. It consisted of three meagre pages. “Forgill Castle is the home of the Duke of Forgill – who is currently Sir John MacRanald, the president of the Scottish Energy Commission, among other things – and is located on a rock above the coastline of Loch ness. It’s a fortified house that had served as the home of the MacRanalds for the last eight hundred years and is surrounded, according to the tourist industry, by picturesque gardens, rolling hills and waterfalls.”

The colonel rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Oh, for God’s sake, Jenkins, don’t give me that nonsense!”

“I’m just quoting the official website, sir,” Jenkins shrugged. “The castle _is_ a tourist attraction, most of all because of the closeness of the Loch Ness and the irregularly revived hysteria about the Loch Ness Monster. It has thousands of visitors each year, including from outside of Great Britain.”

“Can the castle itself be visited, too?” asked the colonel.

“Parts of it can and are,” Jenkins replied. “However, the wing actually inhabited by the Duke is off limits, and entry to the Library is not possible either, _owing to the precious nature of its contents_ , as it is said.” 

He made quotation notes in the air with his fingers while saying that. The colonel pretended not to notice when his right hand spasmed uncontrollably by the gesture.

“Do you think it’s possible to hide some secret, high-security lab in plain sight, with thousands of visitors roaming the estate?” he asked.

“Not in the castle itself, I don’t think so,” Jenkins answered, after a few moments of consideration. “But there are always the farm buildings, of course. They lie outside the castle, further down the lakeshore and are supposedly abandoned.”

“ _Supposedly_ being the key word here,” Mace said sourly. “Well, we cannot learn more from here, I’m afraid. That leaves us with your godfather.”

“ _And_ Torchwood,” Jenkins reminded him. "I know you would prefer not to involve them just yet, sir, but there’s a good chance that they would know more about possible alien activities in Scotland than we. They’ve got a branch in Glasgow, after all.”

“That’s just an office, run by an eccentric nobleman with way too much time on his hands,” Mace replied dismissively.

Jenkins shook his head. “Sir Archibald may be eccentric, but he is nobody’s fool. He takes notice of more things than people would give him credit for. And what he knows, Jones would know, too.”

Colonel Mace sighed unhappily. “I guess I can give them a call.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
At the same time in the Torchwood Hub the morning shift was coming to end. Ianto had just got back from _Providence Park_ , where he was still undergoing physiotherapy three times a week, and was looking through the reports from the morning and the previous night. He decided against going straight home, choosing instead to wait for Rhys and Emma who were about to serve lunch for the entire team in the boardroom.

Well… almost the entire time. Save for those from the night shift who had already gone home.

In the tourist office Beth Halloran was doing some non-confidential filing and Jenny was down in the basement with the Weevils. She had developed a bond with Janet, their oldest resident; one not unlike to that of Tom Milligan with his adopted dog, Molly. With the marked difference that Janet could actually communicate with the Gallifreyan girl via some crude sort of telepathy that transmitted images instead of thoughts.

Owen was fascinated by this, of course, even a bit envious that it hadn’t been him to make the connection. But he was eager to learn more about Cardiff’s most steady alien population and spent a great deal of time down in the basement with them and Jenny. Ianto was secretly glad that Owen had found something to bring him out of his post-alcoholic depression.

The reports didn’t contain anything extraordinary – with one exception. Jack had discovered that the little coral, the one that had stood unchanged on his (now Ianto’s) desk for so many years, had begun to grow. It was a slow, barely visible process, but Jack had used a scanner from the 39th century to take measures and established the fact that the coral showed a steady growth of 0.02 per cent a day.

“What could be a reason for this?” Ianto asked. “What sort of thing is this anyway?”

Jack bit his lip and hesitated for a moment before answering.

“I’m not sure,” he finally admitted. “The Doctor said once that TARDISes are grown from such corals, but I always thought this one was dead.”

“Or it just waited for the touch of a Time Lord,” pointed out Ianto. “In which case Jenny must have been the one to ‘wake it up’, so to speak. Do we truly have a baby TARDIS growing in our basement?”

“The organic shell of one, in any case,” Jack corrected. “I’m not sure how the technology comes into one; perhaps Jenny will be able to tell. She does have the general knowledge of the Time Lords.”

“ _If_ the Doctor had any idea in the first place,” reminded him Ianto. “Even in our time, not everyone who can drive a car would be able to _build_ one, too.”

“Still, Jenny is our best possible source of information,” Jack argued. “Unless the Doctor chooses to drop by in the not too distant future.”

“Even if he does, I doubt he would tell us anything,” Ianto returned dryly. “We both know what he thinks about us hairless apes in general and about Torchwood in particular.”

Before Jack could have answered, Ianto’s phone rang. He picked it up and raised an eyebrow at the caller ID.

“Jones,” he said crisply. “What can I do for you, Colonel?”

“You can tell me what do you know about a place called Forgill Castle and about aliens in Scotland,” Colonel Mace replied without preamble.

Ianto frowned. He hadn’t expected Colonel Mace to contact him about something so… extravagant. Their discussions were usually to-the-point and extremely dry.

“As far as I know the only alien in Scotland is the Loch Ness monster; and _that_ is closely watched by Torchwood Two,” he said.

“What about Forgill Castle, then?”

“I’m not sure,” Ianto admitted. “I’ll look up if we’ve got anything about the place in the Archives. I seem to remember having heard the name, but as Torchwood wasn’t directly involved…”

“Torchwood might not have been,” Mace said, “but the Doctor probably was… one of the earlier Doctors, most likely. Jenkins says his godfather had mentioned the place, but he can’t remember anything of use.”

“I see,” Ianto knew, of course, who Private Jenkins’s godfather was, and the thought that one of the previous Doctors might have messed up something in Scotland in the past that had now come back to bite them in the backside didn’t make him happy.

“Which is why I’m sending Jenkins to the next family reunion,” Mace added.

“That may prove helpful,” Ianto agreed. “In the meantime, Colonel, you and I should speak. In _private_.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Mace said. “I’m planning to come into town tomorrow. Are you available?”

“My schedule is pretty flexible,” Ianto replied blandly and Jack, who knew this meant that the young Torchwood Director spent most of his waking hours in the Hub rolled his eyes. “When would it be convenient for you, sir?”

“I have a meeting at 10 am in the Town Hall with Mr Grainger, but after that I am free for the next couple of hours,” Mace explained.

“That is a lucky coincidence,” Ianto said. “I’ll have to meet Mr Grainger’s PA, who is our liaison to the Town Hall, at the same time. We can meet there and I’ll treat you to lunch somewhere where we can talk without being disturbed.”

Mace agreed and hung up, without bothering to express any thanks – not that Ianto would have expected him. Jack grinned at Ianto.

“Coincidence, is it? I never knew you believed in coincidences… unless you’ve arranged them yourself.”

“True,” Ianto confessed. “I asked Idris Hopper to organise our next meeting for the same time Colonel Mace is scheduled to meet Mr Grainger. I hoped to run into the colonel _accidentally_ ; but if he seeks me out on his own, all the better.”

“And where are you planning to treat him to lunch?” Jack asked. “It should be a safe place; the two of you have some sensitive subjects to discuss.”

“You mean the _three_ of us, don’t you?” Ianto corrected. “I need you with me on this, Jack. Which is why I’m considering to take the colonel to your place and simply order in.”

Jack shrugged. “Works for me. I’ll even break out the good china for the occasion.”

“You don’t _have_ any good china,” Ianto reminded him.

“Actually, I do; although it has been in storage for the last century or so,” Jack said simply. “I used to be married once, back in the olden days, you know.”

Ianto stared at him in disbelief. “You are full of surprises, Jack!”

“I hope so,” Jack replied with a flirtatious grin; then he became serious again. “Forget ordering in. I don’t cook often, but I’m more than capable of putting together a proper lunch if I have to.”

“As I said: full of surprises,” Ianto said with an indulgent smile. “Well, let’s have lunch, Captain, my Captain, and afterwards I’m going to give Sir Archibald a call, on a secure line. I’m fairly sure that he can tell us more about Forgill Castle than all the Internet research Colonel Mace’s subordinates may come up with.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The huge colony ship had reached the outer plants of the system: a series of spectacular gas giants, one of them surrounded by multiple rings. The automatic board systems reacted to the presence of planetary masses and sent the ship into stealth mode, so that no hypothetical inhabitants of the target world would detect them. Secrecy was a vital aspect of this operation.

There was still no report from the spearhead unit that had been sent to said planet several local decades ago, but the ship could not tarry any longer. It was behind schedule already, and the young of its masters had begun to hatch. This was a biological imperative that could not be held back.

It was also a dangerous process. Outside the gestation chambers, the shielding was minimal. It would protect adult individuals, but the hatchlings were more vulnerable to cosmic radiation; and once hatched, they couldn’t be kept in the gestation chambers. The environment there would no longer match their needs.

The artificial intelligence steering the ship’s systems analysed the facts and came to a decision. It would no longer wait for a report from the spearhead unit but continue the journey straight to the target planet. It was a choice that contained serious risks; but any other solution would have meant to risk losing the entire brood – and _that_ risk simply wasn’t acceptable.

There were no reports about any of the other colony ships having survived the massive solar outburst that had caught the fleet in the neighbouring system. They were the last. But even if they were not, the safety of the next generation would have had priority over any other considerations.

The artificial intelligence checked the amount of available food for the hatchlings. It would be enough – barely – if they didn’t waste any more time reaching the target planet. The artificial intelligence had no concept of hope – it was a machine, after all – but it knew that on the planet enough _fresh_ food would be available, if the spearhead unit had succeeded.

There was an equal probability that it had _not_ , of course. But the programming of the artificial intelligence offered no solution for _that_ case.


	2. Contingency Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While this story can stand on its own, reading the previous instalments would be ready helpful in understanding the entire background.  
> This is the fifth instalment of the “Sleeping Dragons” series, a Torchwood Season Two AU. Certain canon events have been moved up or down the Whoniverse timeline to make the series’ events possible. All changes have been made deliberately.  
> The family background of Private Jenkins has been completely made up by me. His father is probably the only original character in this story.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**CHAPTER 02 – CONTINGENCY PLANS**

Colonel Mace liked Mr Patrick Grainger. Not only was the man the leader of the council in Cardiff, he was also the city coordinator, meaning that he took charge of the city in case of major emergencies. As the one who had all the security protocols, in this function he regularly met with Mace, co-ordinating their actions in case of a threat.

Of course, their ideas of possible threats were vastly different. For Mr Grainger the peak of any possible dangers was a terrorist bombing. Colonel Mace thought in terms of a full-blown alien invasion, of which he was _not_ allowed to speak. Nonetheless, they managed to keep up an amiable working relationship – based on their mutual knowledge about the nuclear warheads stored in an abandoned mine right under the local UNIT base.

As usual, their conversation had been fairly short and served little else than to assure each other that everything was all right on their respective sides. Mr Grainger also told a few funny anecdotes about his children, and then saw the colonel off personally.

Jones and another young man in an impeccable suit were already coming to intercept them. Mace had to give the young Torchwood Director credit for his acting abilities: Jones faked his surprise upon their ‘chance’ meeting most convincingly.

“Colonel Mace!” he exclaimed. “Fancy seeing you here, sir! I was about to call your office because of a... _situation_ I wanted to discuss with you. _If_ you have the time, that is.”

Mace made a show of checking his wrist watch. “I have to return to base by 2 pm, but until then I am free. Do you have a place in mind?”

“As a matter of fact I do,” Jones replied. “You can follow my car in yours. It is the dark blue Aldi over there.”

“Not the Torchwoodmobile?” Mace asked with a crooked grin.

The young Torchwood Director shook his head.

“No indeed,” he answered dryly. “I find it more reasonable _not_ to draw any undue attention.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The place Jones took him to for an undisturbed discussion turned out to be a penthouse, situated on top of one of the modern skyscrapers near the Millennium Centre… and a spectacular one at that. The whole curved outer wall of the living room was made of unbreakable glass that could darken gradually the brighter the sunlight got if required, and it provided the inhabitants with a breath-taking view of the bay _and_ the city. It was furnished with Spartan elegance, full of chrome and black leather and marble surfaces. The few knick-knacks on the shelves were clearly not of Earth origins.

“Somehow I wouldn’t have expected you to live in a place like this,” Mace admitted.

“And you would be right, sir,” Jones replied with a tired smile. “This is Jack’s place. Well, originally it belonged to our medic, but he had to give it up for personal reasons, and Jack was only too happy to take it. He likes to live in great heights.”

“Is he here, too?” Mace asked.

“He volunteered to cook lunch,” Jones vaguely gestured in the direction of an adjoining room which, by the spicy aromas wafting over from it, had to be the kitchen, and called out. “Jack! We are here!”

The sight of Captain Harkness looking out from the kitchen with his patented thousand megawatt grin, wearing an apron with the big-lettered words KISS THE COOK across it was one Mace could have lived without. Harkness always gave him the feeling of an itch he couldn’t scratch. 

At least whatever food he was preparing smelled fantastic.

“Lunch will be ready in ten minutes,” Harkness promised and gave Jones a look-over that had nothing to do with his usual flirtatious attitude. It had more common with the clinical look of a doctor checking on his patient. “How are you, Ianto? Your back bothering you again?”

“More like my leg, this time; at least I have some variety in my pain schedule,” Jones lowered himself into one of the extremely comfortable leather and chrome armchairs with a weary sigh. Turning to Mace, he added as an explanation, “I’m staying with Jack until my full recovery… though seeing the non-existent headway of my heling process, that may take some time yet. There was serious nerve and brain damage due to that telepathic attack.”

Mace frowned. He knew, of course, that Jones had been severely injured a couple of months previously, due to an encounter with an alien assassin, but he didn’t know the young man was still suffering from the aftermath. Of course, nerve and brain damage…

“I thought those were irreparable,” he said.

“They are,” Harkness popped into the living room and began placing rectangular straw mats on the coffee table, setting plates and eating utensils atop them. “Unless you have a batch of 51st century nanogenes at your disposal.”

“Nanogenes?” Mace echoed blandly.

“Microscopic robots,” Harkness explained. “Clever little buggers can build new neural pathways to replace the damaged ones and to bypass any brain damage. But it is a slow and lengthy process, even for them.”

“Plus, they feed off my energy, such as it is in these days,” Jones added. “And physio is still a bitch. I feel like a hundred-year-old sometimes.”

Mace looked from him to Harkness and back. “But you _will_ make a full recovery, won’t you?”

He _hoped_ so. He dreaded the very idea of Jack Harkness taking over the leading of Torchwood again.

“The doctors _think_ so; and so does Jack,” Jones pulled a face. “I’m still not entirely sure that they’re right.”

“I don’t just _think_ so,” Harkness corrected, distributing glasses of non-alcoholic drinks. “I’ve seen them at work many times. They can do amazing things, as long as they have the right template. Which, in your case, they fortunately had. Your body just needs to deal with all the stress.”

“I know, I know,” Jones said tiredly. “I’m just sick and tired of being in pain all the time.”

Mace sampled his drink, whatever it was supposed to be, and found it surprisingly good. It was sweet and spicy and fruity at the same time.

“Do you think these… nanogenes could help Jenkins and the others, too, once they’re done with him?” he then asked Harkness.

“If there’s enough of them left, then yes, they can,” Harkness replied. “The problem is, we can’t tell in advance how many of them will have to remain in Ianto’s system to keep him functional. Mere physical wounds, no matter how grave, are child’s play for them – hell, they can regrow entire organs! But brain and nerve damage are much trickier,” he raised a hand, seeing that Mace wanted to argue. “Colonel, I promise that we’ll try our best to help the Privates Jenkins, Harris and Grey. But the sad fact is, we have a limited number of nanogenes – and we can’t make new ones. It’s that simple!”

“Personally, I don’t consider my life more important than theirs,” Jones added apologetically. “However, as the Torchwood Director I am currently irreplaceable, for reasons I am not free to share with you. I _must_ be able to function at my best, sooner rather than later; and I asked you here to discuss the reasons for _that_.”

“Lunch first,” Harkness said before Mace could have answered. “And _you’re_ gonna eat properly, Ianto, or so God help me, I’ll spoon-feed you until you do. You need to replenish your strength, and you know that.”

“Yes, Mam,” Jones replied meekly, but there was suppressed mirth in his eyes. “Whatever you say, Mam.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Lunch turned out to be some sort of vegetable stir-fry that Harkness served in something resembling tortillas. He called it an old favourite from home, which didn’t tell Mace much. He knew that Harkness wasn’t really American, despite his adopted accent, but he had no idea where the other man truly hailed from. The food, however, was very good, if a little spicy for his personal taste. All he missed was a little meat.

“Are you both vegetarians?” he asked.

“Not on principle,” Jones explained wryly. “I just have had slight problems eating meat ever since I almost got eaten by a bunch of in-bred cannibals in the Breckon Beacons a year or so ago.”

Mace had heard about _that_ , of course. Everybody had. It had been the goriest news of the year. He just didn’t know that Torchwood had been involved. The thought of the young man currently sitting opposite him nearly being butchered and eaten made him vaguely sick to the stomach. He might not be able to eat meat for a while, either.

“It’s a good thing that I can make tasty vegetable dishes, then,” Harkness added brightly. “Living off of salad alone like those super models would be boring after a while.”

They laughed dutifully and Mace felt his nausea dissipating.

After a light dessert Harkness cleaned the table and dumped everything into the kitchen sink unceremoniously.

“I’ll wash up later,” he promised. “Right now we have more important things to do.”

Mace looked at Jones. “Does it mean you’ve managed to dig out something about Forgill Castle? Something actually _useful_?”

“I don’t know how useful it is,” Jones admitted. “Fact is, however, that back in the mid-1970s an oil rig off the coast of Scotland was destroyed by an unknown force. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and a team of UNIT soldiers were sent to a town near Forgill Castle to investigate, as parts of the rig had been washed ashore nearby. All further details of the case are classified; all we know is that an alien invasion has been thwarted and the Doctor was involved somehow… the fourth incarnation of him, as that was the one Commodore Sullivan used to travel with when he was still a surgeon-lieutenant.”

“Sullivan was personally involved?”

“According to Sir Archibald from Torchwood Two he was. The Loch Ness monster is supposedly the only relic left behind by the invaders, but what exactly it had to do with them is unclear.”

“How is this all related to Forgill Castle?” Mace frowned.

“We are not sure,” Jones admitted. “The Duke of Forgill was somehow involved; unfortunately, he is no longer alive and his nephew, who currently holds the title, didn’t even live in Scotland at that time. The only ones left with actual knowledge would be Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Commodore Sullivan.”

“Let’s hope Jenkins will learn something from him,” Mace muttered.

“We can do better than that,” Jones offered. “We’re about to send a team to Glasgow, to help Sir Archibald retrieve some crucial equipment _and_ information from Torchwood House before the new custodian takes over.”

“You are?” Mace echoed in surprise. “Why that?”

“We don’t want UNIT to lay hand on them,” Jones replied bluntly. “No offence intended, Colonel.”

“None taken,” Mace assured him. “I wouldn’t want Oduya to lay hands on _any_ alien technology, even if it was nothing more than a broken toaster. But if you send a team, I want some of _my_ people to go, too.”

“What for?” Harkness asked. “No offence, Colonel, but we don’t like allowing outsiders into Torchwood House.”

“I’m not interested in Torchwood House,” Mace said. “I want my people to find out what a recently established science lab full of cyberneticists and exobiologists is doing at Forgill Castle.”

“ _What_?” Jones and Harkness cried in unison.

“Captain Price called me recently,” Mace explained grimly. “She’s been reassigned to that lab without forewarning; she barely had the time to pack an overnight bag. The whole thing is very hush-hush, and I want to find out what the hell’s going on up there.”

“Cyberneticists and exobiologists,” Jones said slowly. “That doesn’t sound good, Jack. I think we ought to investigate.”

“Definitely,” Harkness agreed fervently. “The last thing we’d want would be the Cybermen slipping in through the back door. _Again_. Those guys are like cockroaches.”

“We’ll need a bigger team than originally planned, though,” Jones remarked. “I’ll add Trevor – he’s the closest thing we have to a cyberneticist – and we’ll need an exobiologist, too, just in case.”

“What about Dr Jones?” Mace suggested.

Harkness shook his head. ‘She’s too well-known within UNIT. Especially Oduya would become suspicious if she showed up. We’ll have to send Owen.’

“Owen still hasn’t fully recovered,” Jones reminded him.

Harkness shrugged. “It can’t be helped. He knows more about Cybermen than Martha anyway; _and_ he’s easily overlooked.”

“Until he opens his mouth and places his foot firmly into it,” Jones muttered darkly; but he didn’t seem to have any better idea, either. “All right, let’s give him a chance. I just hope he won’t relapse.”

“That’s a risk we have to take,” Harkness said. “We can’t wrap him into cotton wool for the rest of his life. I’ll have _words_ with Archie about not putting any temptations in his way, though.”

“I still don’t like it,” Jones said. “Let’s send Lloyd with them. She’s an ace in genetics, and she’s more than capable of keeping an eye on Owen. Besides, she'll enjoy getting out of the lab again. She enjoys field work.”

“Once SOCO always SOCO,” Harkness grinned.

“Luckily for us,” Jones countered. “Things have been done much more professionally since she’s joined Torchwood.”

“What about my people?” Mace asked.

Harkness shook his head. “It would be too obvious if we had UNIT soldiers accompanying the team.”

“Not necessarily,” Jones said. “It wouldn’t be the first time that we would borrow Colonel Mace’s misfits… the ones unfit for armed duty. No-one would waste half a thought on them.”

“You want Jenkins, Grey and Harris to go with your team?” Mace was stunned. “But they are…”

“… broken people?” Jones finished for him. “Don’t worry, Colonel, so are we; most of us anyway. If anyone is used to working with broken people, it is Torchwood Three.”

Seeing those old, old eyes in the youthful faces of the two of Torchwood, Colonel Mace realised that it was very true.

“All right, then,” he said. “You can have my ‘misfits’, as you call them. When does your team leave?”

“The day after tomorrow at 8am, sharp,” Jones replied. “They’ll take a leased van, as they have to transport Maggie’s belongings to Torchwood Two as well, but we won’t be able to stuff nine people into it, and I’d prefer _not_ to send one of the Torchwood SUVs. They are too recognisable for a covert mission.”

“We do have a few nondescript vans on the base,” Mace offered. “Harris can drive one, and some of your people can ride with them.”

Jones nodded. “That would be very practical, thank you. If they could come to our parking lot to pick half the team up it would be brilliant.”

“Sure,” Mace checked his wrist watch again. “Well; thank you for lunch. Time for me to get back in uniform; we’ll stay in touch, I’m sure.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“So, what do you people think about the whole issue?” Ianto asked several hours later.

He had allowed himself a short nap in Jack’s guest room that currently served as his temporary bedroom, had done his exercises to regain his old mobility and returned to the Hub for the usual daily debriefing. It took place in the boardroom and included the entire team.

“I’d say: Cybermen,” Dr Trevor Howard, Tosh’s right-hand-man and one of the handful survivors of Canary Wharf said grimly. “Why else would they need cyberneticists _and_ exobiologists?”

“I can name half a dozen other reasons off the top of my head, none of them promising,” Jack replied.

“They could be dabbling in organic technology, trying to reverse-engineer some alien gizmo,” Lloyd suggested.

“Or in artificial intelligence,” Adam added, still a bit shy to voice his opinion.

“Or both,” Tosh said. “We won’t know until we get there and investigate. Don’t forget to document everything, no matter how insignificant it appears. We’ll need proof, even if it’s only for our own Archives.”

“Speaking of which,” Owen said, “have you found out more about the alien invasions the Doctor supposedly thwarted near Forgill Castle, back in the 1970s?”

Ianto shook his head. “No. They keep everything under a very tight lid and hacking into UNIT’s sealed files wouldn’t be worth the risk right now. Not until we’ve stored all sensitive information and equipment somewhere Oduya and his cronies won’t be able to find.”

“Assuming that the older stuff is digitalised at all,” Tosh reminded them. “In terms of security they would be better off keeping them on paper. True, physical records can be stolen or destroyed, but for that somebody had to get into their archives in person. They can’t be hacked and stolen from the outside, though.”

“True,” Trevor agreed. “The more annoying for us; I’d really like to know what we’ll be dealing with.”

“Perhaps Private Jenkins will be able to learn something from Commodore Sullivan,” Ianto said. “He’s going to that family reunion tonight; if we’re lucky, he might catch his godfather alone and ask a few questions.”

“There’s another way,” Jack said. “The commodore was never a sole companion of the Doctor. The other one must have been present, too.”

Ianto nodded. “I know, Jack. I’ve already tried to reach her, but she’s apparently switched off her phone. Mr Smith says she’s investigating something on the behalf of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, but it couldn’t – or _wouldn’t_ tell me anything else.”

“Private Jenkins it is, then,” Jack muttered unhappily. “Let’s hope he hasn’t gone completely soft in the head and will remember _why_ he was sent to that family reunion.”

“He will,” Martha, who has been invited to this debriefing, said simply. “He loves doing things no-one else could do, and let’s face it, none of us could have appeared Commodore Sullivan’s private party without raising suspicions.”

“He’s a cheeky bastard,” Rhys growled. “He actually called me yesterday to ask if I’d lend my wife to him for the party! Unbelievable! And Emma actually wanted to go!”

“Every girl needs a night out from time to time,” Lloyd reminded him. “You should have let her go.”

“And what if someone had noticed something about her?” Rhys asked, more upset than strictly necessary. “Those UNIT blokes deal with the same shit we do. I don’t want Emma to end up in some UNIT lab, to be sliced and diced because they want to see how the human body reacts to temporal displacement or whatever.”

“He does have a point,” Tosh said quietly. “I’m glad that Emma allowed him to talk her out of the idea. Besides, Sally Jacobs used to be UNIT, too. She might run into some old co-workers and learn a thing or two on her own.”

“Too bad Jenny doesn’t have her Dad’s personal memories,” Trevor said. “It would make things so much easier.”

“It would make my head explode,” Jenny corrected. “I’m still learning how to use all that Time Lord knowledge stored in my brain. Besides, I’m not sure I’d be a nice person carrying my Dad’s memories; I wouldn’t be a _person_ at all, just a walking, talking database. I prefer being _me_.”

“We all do,” Jack assured her and the others voiced their agreement.

Jenny didn’t quite know how to react. On the one hand, she was glad that the Torchwood gang had obviously accepted her as part of the team by now. Even Ianto had warmed up to her, and she considered _that_ no small victory. On the other hand, it made her a little sad that – with the sole exception of Martha – no-one seemed to really like her Dad. Not the most recent version of him anyway, and that was the only one she’d ever met.

Oh, Jack and Toshiko very obviously adorned the previous one, but both Mickey and Adam hated Nine (as they nicknamed him) with a passion and, Jenny had to admit, not entirely without reason. He _had_ ruined the lives of both young men, in a sense, and while Adam had played an equal part of the final outcome of things, Mickey had been entirely innocent.

Jenny wondered what the fourth incarnation – the one Commodore Sullivan used to travel with – had been like. She wished she could have gone to London top meet the commodore but both Jack and Ianto expressly forbade it. She was not to get anywhere _near_ to the new UNIT brass, for her own safety, no matter how much she would have liked to catch Colonel Oduya alone and teach him a lesson about the folly of keeping her Dad and Jack captive and watching idly as the latter was being tortured.

Jack and Ianto tended to forget that she was a soldier; born and bred to be one, equipped with the highest level of tactical thinking and _very_ good at killing people, with or without weapons. She might have chosen _not_ to do so, but that didn’t mean she’d have lost the _ability_.

Well, there would be another chance to meet the commodore, or so she hoped. She’d really have liked to meet someone who knew – and presumably _liked_ – a much earlier version of her Dad.

Around her the daily briefing was coming to an end. The first and second shifts took their leave and went home. The graveyard shift took over watching the capricious Rift, Adam standing in for the absent Sally Jacobs. Jenny decided to remain with them; partly to give Tosh, with whom she still lived, a bit more privacy, but there were also a few interesting pieces of technology in the Physical Archives she wanted to examine.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Private Jenkins found the party of his godfather tedious. He was bored to tears, despite the witty, vivacious blonde on his arm. The majority of the guests were the very sort of people he’d tried to avoid all his life: bureaucrats, staff officers and the occasional scientist. Some of them, like Professor Malcolm Taylor, had once been acquainted with the Doctor in one way or another, but too many of them were connected either to Colonel Oduya or to his shadowy patrons in Whitehall, and one couldn’t tell for certain who was trustworthy and who was not.

He even glimpsed his őwn father from afar, flanked by other civil servants with C13 – a department in charge of the UNIT liaison – but he didn’t need to worry about being approached. The Honourable James Philmore, second cousin of the Viscount Sherringford, was a man of principle. Once he had summarily disowned his only, late-born son, he washed his hands of the boy who from then on had counted as dead for him. Not even the recent demise of his much older wife had changed that.

That was fine with Jenkins, really. He never got on with his father, although he sometimes missed his no-nonsense, by-the-book mother who had taught him handling weapons and standing his man in hand-to-hand combat at a fairly tender age. But then he reminded himself that his mother had been in complete agreement with his father about disowning him when he’d rebelled against a future pre-determined by his parents. She might have loved him in her brusque manner, but she would never tolerate disobedience; something that had always warranted the respect of the men serving under her command.

The only person who had accepted his choice from the very beginning had been Uncle Harry, Jenkins remembered, smiling fondly at the living legend standing in the circle of his guests and admirers. Since retiring from regular duty, Commodore Sullivan had taken to wear those dramatic sideburns from his youth again, and in his parade uniform he looked like a sea captain from some old pirate film. He was talking to a distinguished elder couple that looked to be teachers or scientists – or both.

“Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright; the oldest known companions of the Doctor,” Sally Jacobs murmured so quietly that no-one else could hear. “It’s said they used to travel with the very first one; a grumpy old man who even had his granddaughter with him.”

Jenkins stared at her in shocked surprise. “How could you know that? The former companions of the Doctor usually keep a low profile – except Captain Harkness, that is. I seriously doubt the man knows even the _meaning_ of low profile.”

Sally rolled her eyes. “Torchwood Archives, how else? Captain Harkness keeps a weather eye on the other ex-companions, in case they would need rescuing. Not everyone is a fan of the Doctor, you know. But come on, you should sneak up to your godfather while the brass are still preoccupied with the pretty waitresses and the drinks.”

Jenkins was still more than a little shocked by the mere concept of the Doctor having a granddaughter – he’d only ever met the tenth version of him who looked like a relatively young bloke, even though he knew, theoretically, that the Time Lord was over nine hundred years old. He realised that Sally was right, though. If he wanted to speak to his Uncle Harry in private, he needed to approach him, _now_.

Commodore Sullivan seemed all too happy to see him.

“Ross, my boy!” he explained. “I say it’s jolly good to see you at least. How come that you finally deigned us with your presence?”

“Jack Harkness sent me,” Jenkins replied, cutting to the core without delay, in case they’d be interrupted by unwanted third parties. “We need information, Uncle Harry. Well; Torchwood does.”

“Blimey,” the commodore blinked in surprise several times. “About what?”

Jenkins lowered his voice until it was barely more than a whisper. Fortunately, his godfather’s hearing hadn’t declined with the passing of years.

“About Forgill Castle,” he explained, “and what happened there in the mid-1970s, when you were travelling with the Doctor.”

“Why?” the commodore asked in honest surprise. “That was decades ago!”

“Because UNIT has just established a top secret lab at the Castle and Torchwood is worried about what might be happening there,” Jenkins said. “So is Colonel Mace, as a matter of fact.”

“I see,” Sullivan became extremely grim at once, reminding his errant godson that he was much more than just a sometimes eccentric uncle. He was an experienced Navy officer who had, not so long ago, worked for MI5 and the NATO, respectively, in highly confidential cases.

“Are you certain about it?” he asked after a moment of consideration.

“Colonel Mace is,” Jenkins replied; then he looked at his godfather in shock. “Does this mean you _don’t_ know about it, Uncle Harry? Usually you know about everything that’s going on within UNIT!”

“Not since the most recent change of leadership,” the commodore admitted sourly. “Everyone who worked closely with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart has been pushed out of position during the last couple of months. Sure, they can’t do a thing against _me_ , but my contacts have begun vanishing, one way or another. So no, I’m afraid I can’t tell you – or Colonel Mace or Jack Harkness – anything about this new lab. This is the first time I’ve heard about it.”

“What about Forgill Castle, though?” Jenkins asked. “Was there truly an alien invasion in the 1970s?”

“That,” Sullivan said, “is confidential information.”

“If it had something to do with aliens, Torchwood needs to know it,” Jenkins pointed out. “Torchwood Glasgow in particular. Sir Archibald is an old friend of yours; he must know what’s going on under his very nose.”

“Sir Archibald has been thoroughly debriefed about the events in 1975, as soon as he took over Torchwood Two,” the commodore said. “He needed to be informed; he’s been entrusted with watching over the Loch Ness monster, after all.”

Jenkins shook his head in utter disbelief.

“You know, Uncle Harry, even after all that I’ve seen since joining UNIT, I still find it hard to believe that the Loch Ness monster is real. It sounds… too ridiculous.”

“Nonetheless, it’s true,” Sullivan replied. “As I said, the information is on the need-to-know basis; but perhaps Captain Harkness and Director Jones _really_ need to know what happened back then.”

“Which is why I am here,” Jenkins reminded him impatiently. Sullivan sighed.

“I know that, my dear chap. But I still have my orders, coming directly from the Brigadier, and I cannot defy them. However, Sir Archibald is _not_ restricted by the same orders. He is Torchwood, not UNIT, and he, too, answers to young Mr Jones since Her Majesty made him the new Torchwood Director.”

He took a small notebook out of his pocket, scribbled down a single word and a lengthy code, consisting nine numbers and seven seemingly random letters, tore out the page and handed it to his godson.

“Learn this by heart and then burn the page to ashes,” he ordered. “If you give the password and the code to Sir Archibald, he’ll hand you the files regarding Forgill Castle and that particular alien invasion. And Ross,” he added, suddenly very serious, “let no-one catch you with them. You _are_ UNIT; and Oduya would not hesitate to have you court-martialled and executed for high treason.”

“Perhaps I’ve been with UNIT for too long,” Jenkins said slowly.

“Perhaps,” the commodore allowed. “But you can’t quit just yet. Not before this particular crisis is solved. And even if it is, don’t burn all bridges behind you. Not before you’ve found something else to do with your life.”

“You could always come and work for Torchwood, you know,” Sally suggested.

The commodore gave her a mildly disapproving glare; the kind that made battle-hardened veterans quake in their boots.

“I really don’t think that my godson would meet the usual Torchwood requirements right now, Miss Jacobs,” he said with deceptive mildness.

“Seeing that I’m practically a cripple and will most likely remain one,” Jenkins added bitterly.

But Sally was a survivor of the Sycorax invasion and therefore not easily intimidated.

“As Director Jones told Colonel Mace, Torchwood is good at dealing with broken people,” she replied. “Most of us _are_ broken, one way or another… including himself. And those who aren’t yet, will be, eventually.”

Jenkins shook his head. “I’d be useless; as useless as I am at the base. I can’t even drive a car anymore!”

“But you are still good with computers,” Sally pointed out. “If nothing else, you could track the field teams via CCTV. Still better than playing _Alien Invasion_ in the colonel’s office.”

Jenkins didn’t seem much persuaded about the idea and Sally dropped the argument. She would speak with Ianto later, in private, about it. She knew what neither Jenkins nor the commodore could know: that there might be actual recovery in the young man’s future, in case some of the nanogenes would become available. She didn’t want to mention _that_ just now, though. Making him false hopes would have been cruel.

“We’ve been standing here long enough,” she said instead. “Let’s mingle a bit or we’ll make certain people suspicious.”

“She’s right, son,” Sullivan said. “You’ve got everything I can give you right now. The rest is up to you… and to Torchwood. Just keep me informed, and I’ll see that the Brigadier learns about what you find out.”

~TBC~


	3. A Short Visit to Torchwood Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Torchwood Two Headquarters has been modelled after Pollok House that really exists in Glasgow. I chose it as a template because it is old, impressive and so very different from both Torchwood One and Three. The Pollok Park Beach is real as well. Both are only templates, though, not the exact copies of the real thing.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **CHAPTER 03 – A SHORT VISIT TO TORCHWOOD TWO**

Two days after Ianto’s meeting with Colonel Mace a nondescript grey van, driven by Private Harris, turned into the parking lot of the Hub. Jenkins and Grey, also in civilian clothes, climbed out of the vehicle and looked around with interest… well, with slight trepidation in Stevie Grey’s case. Neither of them had ever been to the Torchwood Three Headquarters, and they knew this was as close as they would even get.

It was only half past seven, but part of the Torchwood Three team was already gathered around a leased van, fairly similar to their own. Jenkins recognised Captain Harkness – he’d have been hard to mistake for anyone else –, their young boss in his impeccable three-piece suit, and the bald-headed, bespectacled bloke who was their Number Two scientist. Trevor-something was his name, and he had to be an old pal of their boss, as he always called the Torchwood Director simply Jonesy. 

No-one else did that, although they were all on first-name basis with each other, _including_ Jones.

The tall, no-nonsense blonde with the ponytail, whom everyone called Lloyd, was an ex-SOCO and actually had a PhD – or several PhDs, Jenkins wasn’t entirely sure –, and the weasel-faced, ill-humoured bloke was the head doctor of the Torchwood team, Owen Harper. The sweet-faced, innocent-looking blonde girl in the oversized black leather jacket and the obviously troubled young man who seemed more skittish than Stevie Grey facing the colonel on a bad day were new, though. At least Jenkins had never seen them before, and he was the one with the most previous contact with the Torchwood gang.

They were introduced as Jenny Smith and Adam Mitchell, which didn’t tell Jenkins a thing. Mitchell had a slight Manchester accent, with some American smudge thrown into the mix, and the girl sounded very vaguely Scottish, but that wasn’t much help, either. He’d have to watch them carefully if he wanted to find out more.

With the introductions out of the way, it was decided that Dr Howard (the bespectacled scientist) and Dr Lloyd would ride with the Torchwood newbies, since Dr Howard (“just call me Trevor”) had already been to Torchwood Glasgow before and knew the way. Dr Harper was supposed to play the same role for the UNIT soldiers.

“We don’t use a GPS, as a rule,” Director Jones explained. “They can be tracked, and most of the times we can’t take that risk.”

“Especially not now,” Captain Harkness added grimly. “If Colonel Oduya catches us red-handed, sniffing around his top secret lab, being unfit for armed duty would be the least of your problems.”

There was something in his eyes, the reflection of something truly horrible that spoke about very unpleasant past experiences with the freshly minted commanding officer of UNIT’s British division but Jenkins knew better than to ask. Not _yet_ anyway. Perhaps Dr Jones would be able to tell something about it; she usually had a very similar reaction to Colonel Oduya’s name.

_If_ he could get her to talk.

“So be careful and don’t dawdle,” Captain Harkness continued brusquely. “Get Maggie and her stuff to Archie, then go on to Torchwood House and do your jobs. From there you’ll be able to reach Forgill Castle and whatever else is there in a matter of hours.”

“And keep in touch,” Director Jones said. “Report in once a day. Use the satellite connection, but sparsely. We can’t know how safe it still is; not before you’ve checked out that secret lab… _if_ there is one in the first place.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get your pants in a twist, Teaboy,” the Torchwood medic said impatiently. “We know what we’re doing.”

“I hope so,” his boss replied grimly – and was that the proper way to address one’s superior? Jenkins couldn’t see Stevie’s face but he was sure it would be grey with shock. “Otherwise we could count ourselves lucky when we only get killed.”

With those sobering parting words the two vans got on their way to Scotland.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The journey to Glasgow was long but not entirely unpleasant. Harris was a good driver and now that no authority figures were present, Stevie regained his composition, too. Soon he was engaged in some very excited conversation with the tall blonde named Lloyd about football and twentieth century B-movies, ignoring the sarcastic comments of Dr Harper who appeared to despise both.

Jenkins didn’t know Glasgow very well but he did know Sir Archibald and had visited him before, so he wasn’t particularly surprised when the other van turned into Pollok Park in front of them. The jaws of the others, however, hit the ground simultaneously at the sight of the veritable mansion waiting for them – save that of Dr Harper, of course.

“ _That_ is the headquarters of Torchwood Two?” Stevie started getting ash grey with shock again.

“That is Pollok House,” Jenkins corrected, “which serves both as the location of Torchwood Two and the private residence of Sir Archibald. It has been the property of the McAllisters since it was built in 1752; the family has owned the estate for about seven hundred years.”

“Impressive,” Lloyd judged, taking in the heraldic lions on the gate piers, the huge, semi-circular white staircase that led up to the main entrance of the house and the extensive gardens behind it. “Sir Archibald appears to interpret the idea of hiding in plain sight differently from both One and Three.”

Jenkins shrugged. “He is wealthy and eccentric, which is as good a disguise as any. The gallery on the ground floor is even open to the public on certain days – it is a large collection of Spanish paintings, including El Greco, Goya and Murillo – as well as the rhododendron gardens. Torchwood Two is situated downstairs, where once the servants’ quarters were.”

“Next to the gift shops,” Dr Harper added, grinning. “I bet it drove Yvonne Hartman crazy.”

“But this is a huge mansion,” Lloyd said. “How does Sir Archibald manage it?”

“He doesn’t,” Jenkins replied. “The National Trust of Scotland does – which is why it has to be open to the public, at least partially. Still a clever solution, though; and the parts that are private or Torchwood are more secure than Fort Knox.”

He walked up to the ornamental entrance and rang the bell. Several minutes later a small, almost invisible side door opened and out looked a butler as if straight out from some historical drama, wearing a black jacked and black and white striped trousers, with a dress shirt and highly polished dress shoes.

Only that he didn’t really look like an actor. He was small and slightly bent, as people of earlier times had been, and there was an air of… well, _genuineness_ about him that made those who’d never visited Pollok House before wonder.

“Temporal displacement?” Adam familiar with the phenomenon from first-hand experience, asked in a low voice.

Jenkins nodded. “Edwardian era; an entire household showed up somehow in the middle of the Scottish highlands twenty or so years ago. The Brigadier found them, shocked out of their minds and without a clue how they’d got there, and since there was no way to bring them home to their own time, he entrusted them to Sir Archibald. It turned out a partnership made in heaven.”

He raised his voice ever so slightly as he turned to the elderly man. “Good morning, McTavish. How are things going?”

“Fine, Master Ross,” the butler, who had clearly known Jenkins since his toddler years, answered. “Come on in, Sir Archibald is waiting for you in the library. Jeeves will take your vehicle to the garage.”

“Thank you,” Jenkins said; then he added for the others. “Jeeves is Sir Archibald’s footman and yes, that’s his actual name. I kid you not. Now come, it would be rude to make Sir Archibald wait.”

Now that he was back in the surroundings he grew up with, his speech patterns changed ever so slightly, and a posh public school accent emerged. The butler nodded in approval and led them to a lift, cleverly camouflaged as a time-worn cupboard door.

The lift, too, appeared to be a relic from earlier times, but they soon spotted the surveillance camera cleverly hidden in the ornate ceiling lamp. The walls were covered with gold-embroidered brocade in a deep burgundy red, and there was an opaque glass surface next to the door, probably just part of the decoration, framed with copper. Like a small mirror, only that it didn’t seem to reflect anything.

Jenkins laid his palm on the opaque surface briefly and leaned closer to the bulkhead, as if looking for something in particular. A diaphragm opened in the wall, with a short beam shining right into his left eye, and the glass under his palm flashed green.

“Identity confirmed,” an artificial voice announced. “Please give destination.”

“Torchwood, main library,” Jenkins said and the lift smoothly began to sink.

Way too smoothly for such an apparent relic, in fact.

“Cool!” Stevie blurted out in open-mouthed awe. “Very Star Trek!”

“A lot better, actually,” Jenkins grinned with almost proprietary pride. “But if you want to compare it to campy sci-fi shows, _Sanctuary_ would be a much better analogy.”

“Why?” Harris, a great fan of said show (and of Amanda Tapping, especially) asked with interest.

Jenkins laughed; they hadn’t seen him so carefree since before the Sontaran invasion. It was a nice sight.

“Wait until you’ve seen the library,” he replied, “Or Yggdrasil, for that matter.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
He refused to say more, but that wasn’t really a problem, as in the moment the lift stopped, opening its doors to the most amazing room any of them had ever seen outside of the library of the British Museum in London.

It was sparsely lit, presumably to protect the ancient, sensitive tomes that filled the floor-to-ceiling shelves made of dark, polished wood, which lined the walls so that its true dimensions could only be guessed rather than seen in detail. Here and there the homogenous wall of shelves was broken by narrow doors, leading to other rooms of unknown function, or tall windows that opened to the famous rhododendron gardens, though those were currently obscured by heavy, tobacco-coloured velvet curtains.

A long oakwood table with matching, high-backed chairs stood in the middle of the room, for those who wanted to read or probably for conferences as well. Further back, in front of a beautifully carved ancient fireplace with its holographic flames glowing gently in the semi-darkness, a coffee table was placed, with four large, comfortable leather armchairs around it. The required paraphernalia for high tea were already laid out on the onyx-plated table, including several three-tiered cake stands laden with dainty crust-less sandwiches and an array of very appetizing cakes and pastries at the sight of which their mouths began watering at once. It was definitely too early for tea, but it appeared that the master of the house held hospitality for more important than following tradition.

Speaking of the master of the house, he was now gracefully emerging from one of the overstuffed leather armchairs to welcome his visitors.

Sir Archibald McAllister, Torchwood Two’s famously eccentric leader, was not what one would have expected, given his reputation. To begin with, he was relatively young – in his mid-forties at best, Lloyd thought. Beyond that, he looked decidedly English, with a vague likeness to a younger Paul McCarthy, slightly longish hair that ended at his jaw-line and pale, almost watery blue eyes. 

He did wear a kilt with the traditional jacket and belt pouch, but that was about the only thing he happened to have in common with his fierce ancestors from the highlands. It was a known fact (among Torchwood agents, at least) that he drove a convertible and was very fond of cats.

He also appeared genuinely delighted to see Jenkins.

“Ross, me lad!” he exclaimed, enveloping the younger man in a bear hug that made Jenkins groan in protest; he must have been stronger than he looked. A _lot_ stronger. “It’s good to see ya again.”

“And you, Uncle Archie,” Jenkins replied when he could breathe again. “I’m here on business, though.”

“I know; Jack’s phoned,” Sir Archibald released him, held him at arm’s length and gave him a thorough glare, as if looking for any signs of illness or injury. “Would you mind introducin’ us first, though? Kermit here I know,” he gestured at Owen who made a rude gesture in response, “but not the others.”

“I am wounded, Sir Archibald, I really am,” Trevor Howard commented. “I distantly remember having met you before – in this very place, in fact.”

Sir Archibald stared at him with a frown; then he grinned. “Oh, aye, the techie from One; now I reckon. Sorry for that, lad; I only tend to mark me the rude ones spontaneously. Like Kermit.”

“Up yours, Archie,” Owen said amiably.

They all laughed, save for Stevie who was mortified by the manner in which the others treated a member of the peerage – not that the nobleman in question would mind it. In fact, he appeared to enjoy being treated like anyone else, no matter how blue his blood might have been. That certainly explained his fondness of Captain Harkness who never seemed to be impressed by titles and such.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
After the proper introductions had been made, Sir Archibald insisted on having tea with them, which was served by an elderly woman wearing a long black dress and a white apron. She, like the butler seemed out of time and was, in fact, his wife as well as Sir Archibald’s cook. 

With the tea, served in a tea service that would make any museum envious, they were offered the sandwiches, cakes and pastries already waiting on the coffee table, and they made small talk, as Sir Archibald refused to discuss business during tea – apparently, he held _some_ traditions sacred. His guests didn’t mind, though, as he was an excellent and most entertaining host full of hilarious anecdotes about people the others only knew from the celebrity news, and so they were having a grand old time.

Until Harris happened to snip his fingers in reaction to one of the anecdotes, that is. The sight of Adam’s brain through the automatically opening infospike killed the mood instantly. The UNIT soldiers, who hadn’t been briefed about it, turned distinctly green, although Sir Archibald himself remained completely unfazed.

He, too, was Torchwood, after all, and had seen his fair share of odd – or even horrifying – things in his time.

“I see the need to keep out of the public eye,” he commented. “Is that why Ianto’s sendin’ ya to Torchwood House? You ain’t quite human, are you? At least not from _this_ century.”

“Actually, I am,” Adam snapped his fingers to close the interface. “But I made a trip with the Doctor in the far, far future and was stupid enough to have this infospike installed.”

“The Doctor was not impressed,” Trevor supplied grimly. “So he dumped him unceremoniously back in the time he came from, without bothering to remove the infospike first. Which, if you ask me, was bloody cruel, as well as irresponsible.”

“All right, I get it that you don’t like my Dad,” the young blonde that had been introduced to Sir Archibald as Jenny smith groused. “But do you really have to be such a bloody git about him?”

Trevor gave him a look that was almost compassionate. _Almost_.

“Jenny, sweetheart, we all love _you_ to pieces,” he said. “But let’s face it, no-one of us has any reason to like your _Dad_. 'Specially not those of us who’ve survived Canary Wharf. And if we want to be brutally honest, he left _you_ behind, too, without bothering to check if you’re really dead. He might have saved the world occasionally, I give him that, but he never cared about the aftermath.”

Sir Archibald looked at Jenny with interest. 

“I never met the Doctor personally, of course, but Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart was tellin’ tales about him all the time,” he said. “He never mentioned Time Lords havin’ children, though.”

“Well, they bloody well had to, or else they’d have become extinct a lot easier,” Owen commented. “Jenny here is the result of the Doctor’s encounter with a cloning machine, though.”

“A progenitor machine!” Jenny corrected in a slightly offended tone. “I’m _not_ a clone! I’m my own person!”

Owen waved off her protests. “Whatever. Now, Archie, if you don’t mind, let’s get Maggie here settled, and then we can go down to business. This is not a social visit, as you know.”

Sir Archibald grinned. Unlike most people, he actually found the abrasive manners of Torchwood Three’s medic refreshing; for the same reason he liked Jack Harkness, too.

“I see your people skills haven’t improved much,” he said. “It’s a good thing that your patients are usually dead.”

He then turned to his new personal assistant, hired for him by Ianto. “Kermit is right, though. Yer rooms have been prepared, lass; Jeeves will show ya where they are. We’ll be meetin’ later in the afternoon and discuss things in detail.”

He rang and his time-displaced footman – dressed in the same style as the butler but at least a decade younger – came to show the young woman to her rooms. He waited for the door to close behind them, and then looked at Jenkins.

“Well, now that we’re among us, lad, what about tellin’ me why you and your pals are here? Yer not Torchwood, after all.”

“No,” Jenkins agreed. “Actually, we were sent by Colonel Mace. It seems that some new, top secret UNIT lab has been established at Forgill Castle, and what little we know about it makes both the Colonel and Captain Harkness worried.”

Sir Archibald became eerily still, the name of the place clearly having some significance for him.

“Forgill Castle, ya’re sayin’?” he then said. “Have you asked yer godfather about it?”

“Of course,” Jenkins replied. “But he told me that he isn’t allowed to speak about what happened there, back in the 1970s, under the orders of the Brig. Which is why he sent me to you. Said you weren’t bound by the same orders.”

“It’s not that simple,” Sir Archibald said slowly. “I’m not UNIT, true, but I cannae just talk about it freely, either.”

“I was given the password and the authorization code,” Jenkins said.

“I see,” Sir Archibald thought about that for a moment. “I believe we better discuss this in private, lad: you, me, Kermit and the techie from One. McTavish can give the others a tour of the house and the gardens in the meantime.”

“And don’t forget to pay Yggdrasil a visit,” Jenkins added, grinning.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“Who is Yggdrasil?” Jenny asked, a bit offended that she and Adam were ushered out into the extensive gardens, together with the two UNIT soldiers.

Granted, she wasn’t exactly Torchwood, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t trustworthy, was it? She made a mental note to complain by Captain Harkness about her treatment. The fact that Lloyd joined them voluntarily, even though she had been offered to remain with the other Torchwood people, didn’t placate her one bit.

“It is a nickname for the Pollok Park beech, which is thought to be two hundred and fifty years old,” McTavish explained.

“I thought Yggdrasil was an ash tree,” Private Harris commented.

“The one of Norse mythology certainly was,” Adam said; having an infospike also meant having a great deal of unnecessary trivia stored in his head. “Why would anyone nickname a beech after it?”

“You will see, young master, as soon as you met him,” the butler replied, leading them through a veritable sea of rhododendron shrubberies, sectioned into compartments by mature yew hedges. “ _Our_ Yggdrasil is no ordinary tree.”

The unquestionable truth of that statement became clear for them as they went down the Woodland walks, in the centre of which they finally found the immense tree. It did resemble a beech – the _Faqus sylvatical_ , in fact – but it had an unusual form with a swollen trunk that measured a seven metre girth at grade and a ten metre girth at ten metre height, and a gnarled mass of branches.

“This may not be an ash tree,” Lloyd said quietly, “but it isn’t a beech, either. In fact, I seriously doubt that this tree is from Earth at all.”

“Indeed, he is not,” McTavish admitted. “Yggdrasil was sold to the Torchwood Institute as a sapling some two hundred and fifty years ago by alien space smugglers. He originates from the planet Cheem, where his kind is kept by the tree people like… like we keep pets, apparently. Accordin' to Sir Archibald, he’s about as intelligent as a dog or a horse, only that he cannot move away from this place, of course. Fortunately, he seems to like it here.”

“If he was originally planted by the Forest of Cheem, he must be aware of our presence,” Jenny said and McTavish nodded.

“He does that. Sir Archibald is his favourite, of course, but he also recognizes us and greets us… not in the presence of outsiders, though,” he looked at Jenny. “He will probably react to you, though. Lay your palm on his bark.”

After a moment of hesitation Jenny did as she’d been told – and nearly snatched her hand back as she could feel the faint tremors under the surprisingly smooth skin of the enormous tree, like a slow heartbeat. At the same moment thoughts flooded her mind, ancient and too alien even for somebody with Time Lord knowledge in her head, in a brilliant and confusing kaleidoscope, until they crystallized into a wordless greeting.

She returned the sentiment mutely, humbled and amazed by the friendliness of the ancient creature.

The elderly butler smiled at her. “He likes people who are different. I knew he would like you.”

“Are there any other alien plants in these gardens?” Lloyd asked, completely fascinated by the mere thought of it. The recently arranged alien greenhouse of Torchwood Cardiff was one thing, but having something as enormous as Yggdrasil under free sky was stunning, simply stunning.

“Let’s just say that not all these rhododendrons here are truly rhododendrons,” McTavish answered slowly. “Some of them ain’t even plants.”

“What _are_ they then?” Lloyd asked, excited by the chance to meet new alien species; ones that weren’t trying to kill them for a change.

“People,” the butler said simply. “Let me show you somethin'.”

He led them back to the gardens, turning into a narrow path that led to a less frequented part of the area, with a shrubbery of white and orange rhododendrons almost hidden in a well-protected corner. There he pulled something resembling an ocarina out of his pocket and played a short, high-pitched melody.

Reacting to that, one of the shrubs unfolded itself and a slender, pale creature stared at them from huge dark eyes that were surrounded by a splash of dark spots like freckles, swaying gently in the light breeze.

It was vaguely humanoid with small, vertical slits where a human nose would be and with a thin, lipless mouth. Its head was shaped like a six-pointed star, framed with a short orange fringe that resembled that of corals. It released a trilling sound, not unlike the short melody the butler had played on his ocarina and half a dozen similar creatures unfolded themselves nearby.

“Fascinating!” Lloyd breathed. “I never imagined that non-green photosynthesizers could even survive on Earth!”

“Er… would you mind to explain what you mean, Doctor Lloyd?” Harris asked warily.

“There are theories stating that, although photosynthesis on Earth generally involves green plants, a variety of other-coloured plants could also support photosynthesis, which is essential for most life on Earth, and that other colours might be preferred in places that receive a different mix of stellar radiation than Earth,” Lloyd explained excitedly. “These studies indicate that, although blue photosynthetic plants would be less likely, yellow or red plants are plausible. It was never postulated that mostly white ones could exist, though.”

“But these guys are people, not plants,” Stevie pointed out. “Mr McTavish said so.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” Lloyd replied. “Theoretically, plant-based intelligent life-forms are possible. They just don’t naturally exist on Earth,” she looked at the butler. “They aren’t from Earth, are they? What are they?”

“We call them the Coral People, even though they ain’t livin’ in water,” McTavish said. “They crash-landed with theirs hip in the North Sea, near the Scottish coast, some sixty years ago. Torchwood Two used to have a proper team back then; they fished the ship out of the water – I’m told it was a right small one – and brought these fellows here. Sir Archibald’s family has been takin’ in alien fugitives since the foundation of Torchwood House.”

“Which is probably the reason why Glasgow was the only Torchwood branch where aliens weren’t killed at first sight; at least until Captain Harkness took over in 2000,” Adam added, the information popping up in his head, unasked-for.

“I thought Queen Victoria founded the Torchwood Institute to _fight_ alien threats,” Stevie said uncertainly.

The butler shrugged. “Do they look like a threat to you? They cannae even walk around that much. Once they’ve found a place they like, they put down roots and stay there. They’re nocturnal, too; during the day they rest in this nice, shadowy place, but as soon as it’s dark, they wake up and start singin’.”

“Singing?” Lloyd echoed in surprise.

McTavish nodded. “It’s beautiful, too. Now, let me put them to sleep again; then we can continue the tour. There’s a lot worth seein’ I haven’t shown you yet.”

He played another short melody on his ocarina, and the bizarrely beautiful aliens folded themselves into shrug-like formations again. He then led the visitors back to the house to show them the gallery and the other sights tourists were usually interested in.

Following the old man at the rear of their little group, Lloyd began to suspect that there was more to Sir Archibald than Captain Harkness would give him credit for.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Ross Jenkins had known that already, of course. But even he was surprised by the depth and detail of knowledge Sir Archibald had about the Doctor in general and the forty-year-old events at Forgill Castle in particular. The others were completely baffled, too.

“Still, what can all this have to do with the secret UNIT lab that has been recently opened up there?” Owen asked, speaking out loud the question hat was ghosting in everybody’s head.

Sir Archibald shrugged. “I cannae say. Perhaps a lot. Perhaps nothing’. You wannae be able to tell until you’ve gone to Forgill Castle and taken a look.”

“We can’t go to Forgill Castle right away,” Trevor protested. “We have business to do at Torchwood House first.”

“That you do,” Sir Archibald agreed, clearly knowing more about the whole thing than the Cardiff team themselves. “If for nothin’ else then ‘cause you’ll be findin’ help at Torchwood House.”

“What kind of help?” Owen asked. “Is the new custodian trustworthy? Who _is_ it anyway? The Palace was very tight-lipped about their identity; not even Prince William would tell Teaboy anything, and they usually get on quite amiably.”

“That is ‘cause Prince William isnae allowed to discuss it, either,” Sir Archibald said. “No-one but the Brigadier and Her Majesty can do so.”

“And you,” Jenkins added.

Sir Archibald nodded. “’Course I can, lad. Torchwood House is in my territory and is, as a result, my responsibility.”

“I thought you answered to Jonesy,” Trevor said, his tone just a tad hostile.

“I do,” Sir Archibald replied. “This is my way to tell him things: the only safe way don’ it in these days. You’ll have to tell him everythin’ you’re goin’ to see durin’ this trip. ‘Cause these are things Director Jones needs to know.”


	4. The Mystery of Torchwood House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I'm a shameless fangirl of _Il Divo_ in general and Urs Bühler in particular, too. There are worse hobbies. *g*

**CHAPTER 04 – THE MYSTERY OF TORCHWOOD HOUSE**

“So, what have you learned?” Lloyd asked, after they’d packed files and artefacts meant for Torchwood House into the vans and were on their way to the very cradle of Torchwood.

“Not very much,” Owen replied sourly. “Well, we _have_ learned a lot, but I haven’t got a clue how important it is for our mission. We’ll see. What about you?”

“Well, we saw a two hundred and fifty-year-old alien tree and a bunch of alien guys that disguise themselves as rhododendron shrubs,” Adam said.

Owen grinned. “Oh, the Coral People? They’re cool. Too bad one needs to have the perfect pitch to talk to them.”

“You knew about them?” Lloyd asked in surprise.

Owen nodded. “Sure. I tried to study them a little but I never had the time to really dig in. There’s too much to do in Cardiff; and I don’t have the right ear for the job. I couldn’t carry a tone in a basket before me.”

“Besides, they don’t really do much,” Trevor added. “They just stand there and look at you with those huge black eyes until you get goosebumps… and not in a good way.”

“I’d still love to study them,” Lloyd said.

“Oh, I’m sure Archie would let you,” Owen replied. “Perhaps you should hire the _King’s Singers_ or _Il Divo_ to help you. They could have fascinating chats with the Corals.”

For one perfectly insane moment Lloyd could actually see before her inner eye _Il Divo_ ’s amazing Swiss tenor – him of the elfin features and the angelic voice – to sit in the woodlands of Pollok Park, having a musical conversation with the fragile aliens. 

On second thought, it wasn’t entirely unimaginable that Urs Bühler was an alien himself, cos honestly, what mere human could have a voice like that? Yes, she was a devoted fan and not the least ashamed of it, thank you very much.

The others laughed and made small talk while continuing towards Torchwood House – well, the Torchwood version of it. Most people wouldn’t have considered a lively discussion about malevolent aliens, future technology or exotic drugs coming from distant planets via a rift in space and time _small talk_.

Still, several hours went by with that sort of discussion and with short breaks, and an hour or so before sunset they finally got their first, distant view of Torchwood House, rising suddenly high and lonely out of the fields, with a large Celtic cross like some sort of warning in front of its gate.

“Impressive,” Lloyd, who hadn’t been here before, judged. “How old is it?”

“The original house was built in the fifteenth century,” Owen explained, while Trevor was pulling up the van in front of the two-storey gabled porch with its Jacobean classical enrichment and Herbert Coat-of-Arms. “But it had been changed a lot in Victorian times.”

“Actually, the first extensive rebuilding was done in the late 1600s, with further work completed in the early nineteenth century,” Jenkins corrected. At the surprised looks of the others he shrugged. “What? The house is one of Scotland’s most interesting properties, and my parents insisted that I should be thoroughly versed in the history of the peerage and their homes. Besides, Torchwood House was closely connected to the royal family at one time.”

“How that?” Harris asked in surprise.

“Well, it was owned by the MacLeish family since the 1500s and purchased by the Crown in 1897,” Jenkins explained.

“At about the same time when the Torchwood Institute was founded by Queen Victoria,” Owen added, with a sideways glance in Jenny’s direction.

Jenkins nodded. “True. Unfortunately, much of the house fell into disrepair during the time of Sir George MacLeish, in the 1800s.”

“That’s odd,” Harris commented. “Especially since it was clearly built to impress.”

“Yes, but Sir George was a rather eccentric man, fascinated by both science and the local folklore,” Jenkins elaborated. “He was also good friends with Prince Albert of Saxon-Coburg…”

“The husband of Her Royal Majesty?”

“The very same. According to old anecdotes, the servants were often kept awake waiting on the Prince and Sir George, as they whiled away entire nights, discussing the mysteries of the myths.”

“Only that those weren’t entirely myths,” Owen supplied. “The so-called ‘werewolves of the Torchwood Estate were, in fact, Lupine Wavelength Haemovariform aliens…”

“Which are what exactly?” Adam interrupted.

“Alien werewolves,” Owen replied with a shrug. “Shape shifters, in fact, who tried to infect the Queen in 1872.”

“What for?” Adam seemed totally baffled. Owen shrugged again.

“How am I supposed to know? The most popular theory is that it should have been the beginning of an invasion. Fortunately, the creature attacking the house was killed by the Light Chamber device, used in conjunction with the Koh-i-Noor diamond.”

“Light Chamber?” Harris echoed; he had a great personal interest in all technical gizmos.

“The famous Torchwood observatory,” Jenkins supplied. “Built by Sir George, under the auspices of Prince Albert. Apparently, it still exists, although the image of its telescope is said to be out of focus all the time.”

“Because it isn’t really a telescope, although it looks like one,” Owen explained. “In truth, the Light Chamber device focused the moonlight so such a degree that the Koh-i-Noor would amplify its power. Of course, without the diamond set into its focus it would be useless now.”

“But what was its original purpose?” Trevor asked. “While technically it _could_ work, of course, why would anyone want that? There are much more efficient ways to utilize focused light, either as a weapon or as a tool. Lasers, for example.”

“Not if you take the werewolf legends seriously, which Sir George obviously had,” Jenkins pointed out. “And it the end it worked out, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, it did kill the creature,” Owen assured him. “But the house suffered a great deal of damage during the attack. Doors were broken down, furniture was smashed… even the glass dome of the library shattered. The male staff was killed by the creature to the last man, including the steward, together with Sir Robert McLeish, who was the house owner at that time, and even the Queen’s protector. The Torchwood Institute was created by Her Majesty as a direct result of these events – and the Doctor got banished from the British Isles, together with his then-companion, Rose Tyler.”

“Why?” Jenny asked, understandably offended on her father’s behalf. “Didn’t they help neutralizing the creature?”

“They did,” Owen admitted. “In fact, much as it pains me to admit, if not for the Doctor, our royal liaison might be howling at the moon once every month. But those events made the Queen aware of the existence of extraterrestrial threats – and let’s face it, the Doctor _is_ an alien. So, he first got knighted for his service… and then banned for being an extraterrestrial.”

“Not that anyone would have taken the ban seriously,” Jenkins added, grinning. “According to Uncle Harry, at least three different incarnations of the Doctor used to work closely with UNIT at one time: the Second, the Third and the Fourth one.”

“Which one was actually banned by Queen Victoria?” Jenny asked.

“The current one; who is, as far as I know, the tenth version of him. The one _you_ met,” Owen shrugged. “That is time travel for you. Or, as the Doctor would say – if you can believe Jack – the _wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey_ stuff.”

“The _what_?”

Owen shrugged again. “He’s not big at scientific terms, or so Jack tells us… in the rare times he _is_ willing to tell us anything.”

“It seems, though, that the house has been reconstructed beautifully,” Lloyd looked up at the impressive building sprawling in front of them.

Her statement was well-founded. Torchwood House truly looked well for a four-hundred-and-some year old building. Behind the gabled porch, it rose to greater height and had four storeys, all built of the same grey, weathered stone. It was faced in ashlar and there were four light stone mullion and transom windows with continuous drip mould, the north side had four tall gables and a stone slate roof.

Jenkins nodded. “Yes, it has. When Sir Robert McLeish died in 1879, and the male line with him, his widow ordered the house shut up and never set foot in it again. It was subsequently purchased by the Crown, allegedly in remembrance of the close bond between the MacLeishes and Prince Albert. Her Royal Majesty ordered the reconstruction work and chose the house to be the seat of the Torchwood Institute.”

“Which is where Torchwood got its name from,” Trevor added, refraining from mention how the Private’s speech took on a rather posh accent when talking about such things; he merely grinned to himself.

“Now, I believe the history lesson has gone on long enough,” Owen interrupted them impatiently. “We should go in and do our actual jobs.”

Without waiting for an answer, he walked up to the front door and rang the bell. The sound reverberated deep inside the house, and mere moments later the door was opened by a wiry man in his early forties, with a five-day-stubble, dark eyes and greying hair. He was wearing some sort of military fatigues, but in black, not in camouflage colours.

“Can I help you?” he asked, in a tone that clearly suggested he didn’t really _want_ to help them.

Owen showed him his Torchwood ID. “Doctor Owen Harper from Torchwood Three. We are expected by the custodian.”

“One moment, please,” the man touched the Bluetooth device in his right ear. “Doctor Arnold, the people from Cardiff are here,” he wanted for instructions, then nodded. “Understood.”

He deactivated the device and turned back to Owen. “Follow me, please. Doctor Arnold and the others are waiting for you in the Library.”

“We’ve got sensitive stuff in our vans, though,” Owen said. “We can’t just leave it out there, without protection.”

“The grounds _are_ protected,” the man replied. “That’s _my_ job here as chief of security. Don’t worry; our archivist will take care of your cargo immediately. Please come with me.”

He opened the door a little wider, letting them into the large, oak-panelled foyer that was at least seventeen feet high, with plaster ceiling and a magnificent staircase. At the Jacobean fireplace another man was standing, in a maroon lab coat over her clothes. He was of the same age as the security chief, had a long, dour face, a very high forehead, receding brown hair and blue eyes.

“This is our archivist, Mr Winslet,” the security chief introduced him. “He’ll look after your stuff.”

“Graham Winslet,” the archivist shook Owen’s hand with unexpected enthusiasm. “You’re Doctor Harper, aren’t you? I’ve seen you at a UNIT conference, right after that failed Slitheen invasion. Do you have a list for me?”

“I didn’t know UNIT has taken over Torchwood House,” Owen wasn’t quite willing to hand over _anything_ to the rival organization.

“It hasn’t,” Winslet assured him. “Neither Sergeant Ramsey nor myself are with UNIT any longer.”

“I believe Doctor Arnold wanted to discuss the matter with Torchwood Three,” the security chief said warningly.

The archivist pulled in his neck. “Right, of course. Well, I’ll need a list and some help with the off-loading, especially if there is any breakable stuff in there.”

Owen, nominally the leader of the ‘Scottish Expedition’, as they called it, turned to Jenkins.

“Private, I understand that you represent Colonel Mace in this case, but can’t your buddies lend Mr Winslet a hand? Jenny, you and Adam, too.”

Neither the two UNIT soldiers, nor Jenny and Adam were happy about being shut out of the upcoming discussion but they didn’t really have a choice. They weren’t Torchwood, after all. Thus they went off with the excited archivist, while Lloyd, Owen, Trevor and Jenkins followed the ex-sergeant to the Library.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The historic Library of Torchwood House had clearly been reconstructed, too, since the dramatic events back in the 19th century. The shattered glass dome had been replaced with an identical one, providing the large room with natural light. The walls were framed by floor-to-ceiling book-cases – not open shelves but actual cabinets, the valuable old books behind protective glass.

The floor was inlaid with coloured marble, arranged in decorative patterns. There was another Jacobean fireplace but no windows at all, and several round, marble-plated little tables stood scattered in the middle of the room, with deep, overstuffed leather armchairs around them.

There were four people in the Library, waiting for the visitors from Cardiff: two men and two women, aged between twenty-something and beyond sixty. It was one of the women, a vivacious brunette in her early thirties, who rose first, offering Owen a hand to shake.

“Doctor Harper? Welcome to Torchwood Four. I am Doctor Sally Arnold, leader of the team.”

For the first time in his life, Owen was too thunderstruck to speak. He lamely allowed Dr Arnold to shake his hand, and then just stood there in slack-jawed shock. It was Lloyd who found her voice first.

“Torchwood Four? I thought you guys were missing. I’m Doctor Sara Lloyd, by the way.”

“Welcome, Doctor Lloyd,” Dr Arnold shook hands with her, too.

“Just Lloyd will be enough. We never stood on ceremony at SOCO and I don’t intend to start with it just because I’m with Torchwood now,” Lloyd narrowed her eyes. “So, when were you guys found? And why doesn’t Mr Jones know about it? He _is_ the Torchwood Director in these days; you’re supposed to answer to him.”

“And we will,” Dr Arnold replied amiably. “You must understand, though: we are not the original team. They were all killed under still unexplained circumstances some ten years ago. Our team has only been reinstated by His Highness Prince William last year.”

“It still doesn’t explain why Jonesy hasn’t been told about you in the meantime,” Trevor said accusingly.

“We’re supposed to be a secret group, unlike the other branches,” Dr Arnold explained. “And given what happened during Prime Minister Saxon’s reign, the Prince insisted on us making _personal_ contact with Torchwood Three only. We had to wait until some of you came over in person.”

“I know that Torchwood Three is the worst kept secret in Cardiff,” Lloyd said slowly. “But why the secrecy about you?”

“Because we are supposed to be dead, with the sole exception of me,” Dr Arnold replied simply. “We all used to work together in a secret UNIT facility, and the others died – well, _almost_ died – together when we accidentally reactivated a dormant Nestene pod and nearly launched a new Auton invasion. Some of us were in coma for quite a while; the others went into hiding, until the Prince picked us to reinstate Torchwood Four.”

Jenkins snapped with his fingers (fortunately, Adam was not around) when a memory surfaced in his head.

“Of course! You were the chief scientist of _The Warehouse_ , working with the late Mr Lockwood and a certain Doctor Matthews, right?”

“That would be me,” one of the Torchwood Four guys, of the same age as Dr Arnold, supplied. “Containment specialist Daniel Matthews, at your service.”

He wore causal clothes: brown corduroy trousers, a grey button-down shirt and a black jacket and had slightly wavy black hair, a somewhat pudgy face and large, round glasses.

“Cool,” Jenkins grinned at him; then he tuned to the old man with the wire-rimmed glasses, the bow-tie and the silver goatee who was still sitting. “You can’t be Mr Lockwood, though. He was much younger; and he definitely died.”

“You’re suspiciously well-informed for a simple soldier, even for somebody representing Colonel Mace,” the old man said with a displeased frown.

“It comes with the territory in our family,” Jenkins replied with a shrug. “Even if they no longer speak with me. So, who are you actually?”

“I am – well, I _was_ – a special operative of UNIT,” the old man said. “My name is Ross Palmer.”

Jenkins’s eyebrows climbed to the roots of his hair. “The psychic? I thought you and Natasha Alexander were killed a couple of years ago in Millhampton.”

“Natasha was; I wasn’t,” Mr Palmer replied grimly. “And neither were Mr Winslet or Miss Chard here,” he gestured at the blue-eyed, somewhat horse-faced blonde sitting nearby. “She was Sal’s assistant at _The Warehouse_ and rather badly injured at that time.”

“But I survived, and now I’m as good as new,” Miss Chard rose and shook hands with the Torchwood Three people. “Janice Chard.”

“So, you are a bunch of supposedly dead people, hiding in Torchwood House, pretending to be Torchwood Four,” Owen summarised.

“No,” Dr Arnold corrected. “We _are_ Torchwood Four; even though Torchwood Four officially still counts as missing. I’ve been discharged from UNIT and sent to Torchwood House as some sort of punishment, as the job of the custodian here is seen as a dead end, career-wise.”

“That is the official version anyway,” Dr Matthews added, grinning like a loon.

Dr Arnold nodded. “Indeed. In truth, I’m the leader of Torchwood Four, and we’re here to protect Torchwood House and whatever Director Jones _and_ Sir Archibald see fit to entrust to our Archives.”

“Protect – from whom?” Lloyd asked.

“We’re still not sure,” Dr Arnold confessed. “But the sudden rise of Colonel Oduya in power has made Prince William suspicious, and he wanted to secure the place.”

“But do you have the means to do so?” Trevor said doubtfully. “You have even fewer people than Torchwood Three, and we are seriously understaffed still.”

“Since we don’t need field agents – not a lot of alien activity in Scotland – we have all the people we currently need,” Dr Arnold replied. “Doctor Matthews, Janice and I cover the scientific angle, Mr Winslet is our archivist and Sergeant Ramsey is responsible for security matters. All we lack is a medic, but it’s still early days for us; and Sir Archibald promised to look out for a suitable candidate.”

“So Archie does know about you?” Owen frowned.

Dr Arnold nodded. “Of course. He was informed by Prince William personally when the royal family visited Scotland. The Prince has been planning to tell Director Jones at the same time but, as you can imagine, he can’t really change his own schedule. So we were empowered to inform your branch as soon as someone came over. We knew you would bring us artefacts eventually, and Sir Archibald agreed that this would be the safest way.”

Owen reluctantly nodded because it actually made sense. Jenkins, however, was still a bit suspicious.

“You forgot to mention what Mr Palmer is doing here,” he said. “What is his field?”

Dr Arnold shrugged. “He doesn’t _have_ one; not like the rest of us, at least not _yet_. The plan is for him to provide basic psychic training for new Torchwood agents, as soon as Sir Archibald begins to build up his team in earnest. In the meantime, he comes in handy when we have to infiltrate places. With his distinguished look and the help of psychic paper he can get into places none of us could.”

“I still don’t understand how was it possible for Jonesy to overlook your presence when he was here to update the Secondary Archives, just a couple of months ago,” Trevor said. “Usually, he notices _everything_.”

“We weren’t here yet at the time,” Dr Arnold explained. “Well, Mr Winslet was – he’d been sent here in advance to work in the Archives – but the rest of us only arrived six weeks ago.”

“That still doesn’t explain why Jonesy wasn’t told,” Trevor continued doggedly. “As the Torchwood Director, he was Mr Winslet’s boss, too.”

“Yes, but Mr Winslet didn’t know _why_ he was sent here,” Dr Arnold replied. “In fact, he only learned that he’d been transferred to Torchwood when we arrived.”

“And he accepted it – just like that?” Owen found that hard to believe. It definitely wouldn’t have worked with _him_.

Dr Arnold nodded. “He and Janice worked with me at _The Warehouse_ for a couple of years. We were a good team. Who the ultimate boss was didn’t matter for him – just the fact that we could work together again.”

“He should be more certain about his loyalties in the future,” Owen said grimly. “Because the day will come when we’ll have to go against UNIT – and we must be sure about him.”

“Don’t worry,” Dr Arnold said with a thin smile. “He is absolutely loyal to _me_. And Prince William made very sure I understood where _my_ priorities are supposed to lie. Not that I’d have needed much persuasion; not after the way UNIT had treated us all,” she added darkly.

“And now that we’ve become united in our dislike where the current leadership of UNIT is concerned, perhaps we can discuss the true reason why you’re here – in the company of UNIT soldiers,” Mr Palmer said with deceptive mildness.

Owen frowned at him. “What do you mean? We’ve brought you a lot of sensitive stuff that could cause great harm in the wrong hands. This transfer has been pre-scheduled through Archie weeks ago. Colonel Mace was merely friendly enough to lend us an escort, since we’re still understaffed.”

The old man gave him a cold look. “Don’t insult my intelligence, Doctor Harper! I may not be able to read your thoughts but I can feel your tension. You are incredibly worried – _all_ of you are – about something that, I must assume, is happening here in Scotland. Otherwise you wouldn’t have come down here with so many people. So, what _is_ it?”

“I’m not empowered to tell about it anyone else but Archie,” Owen said dismissively. “And even if I were, I wouldn’t tell _you_. I have to see yet any proof that you’re telling us the truth – you all. Torchwood Four is a myth – has been ever since I joined the Cardiff branch.”

“Would _my_ word be sufficient?” another voice asked; one of the book-cases turned noiselessly inward, and a familiar figure stepped out of a hidden door behind it.

“Look at that!” Owen commented, grinning like a loon. “If that isn’t our Lieutenant Wales, better known as Billy the Fish!”

Prince William grinned back at him. “I see you haven’t lost a bit of your charming personality, Doctor Harper.”

Owen shrugged. “I am what I am, sir. Even Teaboy has given up on trying to change me.”

“And _that_ means a lot,” the prince allowed. “Well, Doctor Harper; I vouch for Doctor Arnold and her team. Would that be enough for you?”

Owen nodded. “Sure; you are the ultimate boss of us all; you and Her Majesty. But what are you doing here anyway? We thought you were still stationed in Wales.”

“I still am,” the prince replied. “Right now, though, I’m on leave. Officially I’m in Balmoral Castle with the rest of the family; but my grandmother allowed me this little detour to meet you and introduce the new Torchwood branch. I’d have preferred to visit Cardiff base and speak with Mr Jones in person, but I had the impression that I was being watched – well, more than usual – and I couldn’t find a feasible excuse to go to Cardiff outside of my scheduled annual visits.”

“Better safe than sorry,” Owen agreed.

“Exactly,” Prince William crossed the room and took the empty seat at Dr Arnold’s left. “And now tell us why you are here.”

Knowing that he had no choice in the matter, Owen sighed, sat down and did just that.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
After Owen had finished his report – with frequent additions from Jenkins who was better informed in the matters concerning UNIT – they discussed several possible courses of action how to find out what was going on at Forgill Castle. As a result of a great deal of argumentation they finally came to the decision that the Cardiff crowd would spend the night at Torchwood House and then go to Dúnaidh, the sleepy little town near Forgill Castle, where they would pretend to be tourists who wanted to see the Loch Ness monster.

“Mr Palmer will follow us independently,” Owen filled in the others after dinner. “He will try to infiltrate the lab later, should Teaboy fail to arrange for us an official visit.”

“And what are _we_ supposed to do in the meantime?” Jenny asked. “Can we really go and see the Skarasen? I would so like to meet it in the flesh!”

“The _what_?” Adam asked, bewildered.

“The Loch Ness monster,” Jenny replied matter-of-factly.

Adam’s eyes bulged a little at _that_. “Are you telling me that Nessie is _real_?”

The Privates Harris and Grey looked equally flabbergasted. Jenkins, on the other hand, was _not_. Commodore Sullivan might not have told him any details about the events back in the 1970s, but he _had_ told his godson stories about the monster when Jenkins had still been a young child.

“Of course,” Jenny replied with a shrug. “It isn’t really a monster, through; just another alien that got trapped in the Loch, quite some time ago. And I _really_ want to see it!”

“Me, too,” Jenkins said. “I’d like to see how accurate Uncle Harry’s stories were.”

“Speaking of which,” Owen said, “has Archie told you anything about what happened there forty or so years ago?”

Jenkins nodded. “Yeah, he told me everything. I’ll tell you once we’ve blown this joint. No offence to His Highness, but I don’t trust this miraculously reappeared Torchwood branch any further than I can throw them.”

“Neither do I,” Owen admitted. “Not before I’d asked Teaboy what he can find out about them. Let’s all go to sleep; we’ll leave with the first light in the morning.”

“Heading off… where exactly?” Harris asked.

“To a village named Dúnaidh,” Owen replied. “Or Dinnet, if you wanna use its proper English name – which the locals apparently won’t or so I’m told.”

“And what are we gonna do there?” Lloyd asked. “Aside from pretending that we’re interested in spotting the monster, that is.”

“I am,” Jenny said innocently. “Interested in seeing the Skarasen, I mean. So I don’t have to pretend, right?”

Owen ignored her, answering Lloyd’s question instead. “We’ll take rooms at the local inn, listen to the local gossip, play tourist and try to sneak into Forgill Castle – with or without help from Teaboy.”

“The local inn is an… _interesting_ place, according to Sir Archibald,” Jenkins said grimly. “That was where the Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith stayed forty years ago… and had to find out that not everything or everyone was what they pretended to be.”

“Care to share any details with us?” Owen scowled at him.

The young soldier shook his head. “Not here. As I said, I don’t trust that we aren’t monitored. I’ll tell you everything at the inn, once we’re there.”

“And you believe we won’t be monitored _there_?” Trevor asked doubtfully.

“Not really,” Jenkins grinned at him. “But at least I have a fairly good idea where the surveillance cameras will be at the inn.”

“Which is where?” Trevor pressed.

Jenkins just continued grinning. “Oh, but that would be telling. You’ll have to wait, like everyone else.”


End file.
